Danielle Steel - Legacy (2010)

Wachiwi didn’t like the tall spare-looking woman, and it was obvious the children didn’t either. She seemed cold and distant to Wachiwi, and Mademoiselle pointedly ignored her as though she didn’t see her in the room. It was the same disdainful attitude she and Jean had met in New Orleans.

“And these are my children,” Tristan said with a broad smile. “Matthieu and Agathe. Jean saw Matthieu when he was a baby. Agathe was born after he left.” They stared at Wachiwi with interest. Even though she was dressed in ordinary clothes, they could observe easily that there was something different about her, if nothing else the creamy nut color of her skin. “This is a friend of your Uncle Jean,” Tristan explained to them, trying to contain them, and relenting over the cookies, which they rapidly devoured as Wachiwi giggled. She looked like a child herself. Agathe smiled at her immediately. She thought she was pretty, and looked nice.

“Is this the lady Uncle Jean was going to marry?” Agathe asked, as she hopped onto the couch next to her father, and Mademoiselle scowled her disapproval. She thought they should stand at attention and never sit down in the drawing room when they visited their father. He was far less rigid than that with them, and the governess firmly disapproved.

“Yes, it is,” her father confirmed, surprised that his daughter remembered. But he had told her only a few days before, when he got Jean’s letter, and the little girl was excited about a wedding, and wanted to know if she could be in it.

“Where is Uncle Jean?” Matthieu chimed in, and there was a brief silence in the room. And then finally, with a heavy look and sagging shoulders, their father answered. His grief was easy to read.

“He is with Mama now, in Heaven. They are together. His friend came here alone.”

“She did?” Agathe turned to her with wide eyes. “On a boat?” Wachiwi nodded, smiling at her. The little girl had soft blond curls, a sweet round angelic face, and was impossible to resist. Matthieu had the stamp of Tristan and Jean and was tall for his age. Agathe looked more like her late mother, who had been the light of Tristan’s life until she died, and still was. He had mourned her for the past four years.

“Yes, I came on a boat,” Wachiwi said. “I just arrived today.”

“Was it very scary?” The little girl’s eyes were wide.

“No, it was all right. It just took a long time. Nearly two full moons,” she said, and caught herself. “Almost two months,” she corrected, remembering Jean’s words.

“I don’t like boats,” Agathe said firmly. “They make me sick.”

“Me too,” Matthieu added, studying Wachiwi. He wasn’t sure what she was, but he knew that she was different and interesting, and he could tell she was nice to children. Both of them had already decided that on their own.

The children chatted animatedly with them for a few minutes, and then Mademoiselle announced that it was time to go. Both Agathe and Matthieu protested, to no avail. She told them to say goodnight to their father, and escorted them firmly from the room.

“They’re so wonderful!” Wachiwi said sincerely, “and your son looks just like you and Jean.” It had warmed her heart to see it, and despite their fancy clothes, they reminded her of the children in her tribe.

Tristan smiled at what she said. “Yes, he does look like us, poor boy. Agathe looks like her mother. She died when Agathe was born. But the governess is very good with them, we’ve had her since Matthieu was born. Particularly now, without a mother, they need someone to keep them in line. And I’m not always here.” It felt odd speaking to her about these things but he was curious about the woman his brother had brought home, and intended to marry, and he wanted to get to know her. He wasn’t nearly as shocked at her being an Indian as Wachiwi had feared he would be. In fact, he appeared not to be at all. He was an amazingly open-minded and kindhearted person and made her feel welcome at the château.

“She seems very severe,” Wachiwi said honestly about the governess, surprisingly at ease with him. She had disliked her the moment she saw her, but knew enough not to say that. She didn’t want to offend her host. In Indian culture, Mademoiselle would have been a relative of some kind, but she had already learned from Jean that in Europe the people who worked for them were “servants,” and in New Orleans they were “slaves.” The slaves had seemed nicer than Mademoiselle, who was painfully austere, and cold as ice. She didn’t appear to like children.

“I’ll have the housekeeper show you to your room,” Tristan said then. “You must be tired from the trip. How fortunate that you didn’t catch my brother’s illness. You’re feeling well, aren’t you?” He looked concerned. He didn’t want her ill or spreading disease, but she looked healthy to him and said she felt fine. And it was obvious to him that she was young and strong.

He rang a long bell pull next to the fireplace, and a woman appeared who looked like an older relative of Mademoiselle’s, and Tristan said she would show Wachiwi to her rooms. He said that he had arranged for her dinner to be served in her own suite that night, but he would see her in the morning. He didn’t want to sit down to a solitary dinner with a single woman. It didn’t seem right to him, and he had no idea what they would do in future. Perhaps she could eat in the nursery with the children. It wasn’t proper for him to eat with her every night. Without Jean, their situation was more than a little awkward. Wachiwi taking her meals with the children seemed like the only possible solution to him.

The suite of rooms that Tristan had assigned to her, once he knew that his brother wasn’t with her, were a far cry from the slave quarters where his cousin Angélique had put her in New Orleans. She had an enormous sitting room with a view of the ocean, a bedroom with a four-poster canopied bed worthy of a princess, a large bathroom, a dressing room, and a small writing room with an elegant ladies’ desk. Wachiwi had no idea what to do with all the space. And she was so sad that Jean wasn’t with her. If he had been, although she didn’t know it, she would have eventually shared his gigantic suite on the same floor as Tristan’s, but under the circumstances, the marquis had put her in another wing of the château. The nursery where the children lived was just above her, up a single flight of stairs. She could hear them, but didn’t dare go up and risk Mademoiselle’s glacial gaze and stern disapproval.

She wandered around the room, opening drawers and cupboards, in awe of everything she saw, and eventually an enormous silver tray appeared, with meats and vegetables and fruit on it. There was a choice of sauces, a plate with cheese and bread, and a beautifully presented dessert. She cried when she saw it because they were being so kind to her, but all she really wanted here was Jean.

She slept fitfully in the enormous canopied bed, draped in swaths of pink satin, with tassels everywhere, and a wondrous feather bed. She dreamed of the white buffalo again, and didn’t know what it meant. The last time it happened, Jean had died, and she wondered if he was coming back to her now in spirit. She wished he would tell her what to do now. She was lost here without him, and Tristan was equally so about what to do with her. He had visions of her living in the attic of the château until she was an old woman, a legacy left to him by his brother. But what else could he do with her? He couldn’t send her back to America, since she said she couldn’t return to her people. He couldn’t turn her away, or refuse her shelter and care. He couldn’t really keep her there forever, unless he found something useful for her to do, and he had no idea what she was capable of. Probably not much. None of the women he knew would have been capable of surviving on their own, without the protection of their families and men. And Wachiwi was from an entirely different world and knew nothing of theirs. She was totally alone.